(The Center Square) – Recovery efforts in Wednesday night’s midair collision between a commercial jet and Army helicopter responsible for killing 67 people continue as the plane’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have been recovered.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday evening that CRJ700’s black boxes have been “sent to NTSB labs for evaluation.”
The discovery of the vital flight data information comes as efforts continue in the recovery of victims. American Airlines flight 5342 en route from Wichita, Kan., and an Army Blackhawk helicopter collided while the commercial jet was on approach to land at Reagan Washington National Airport.
The collision caused the plane to break into three pieces, plunging into the Potomac River and resting in waist-deep water, according to Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
As of Friday morning, law enforcement sources reported to multiple news outlets that 40 bodies have been recovered. The American Airlines jet included 60 passengers and four crew members; three soldiers were on the helicopter.
A preliminary internal FAA report on the collision obtained by The New York Times shows the airport’s air traffic control tower was understaffed during the crash and was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to the report.
The controller was doing the job of two people, handling helicopter traffic and airport traffic in the vicinity, the Times reported.
The preliminary report comes on the heels of multiple news outlets reporting that flight tracking sites and air traffic control logs show a little over a day before the collision, another commuter jet was cleared to land but executed a go-around due to a military helicopter reported in the area.
The various reports continue to add more questions as to what caused the collision.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., questioned why military helicopters are allowed to do training in the same airspace as commercial planes.
“I have not yet heard a good reason why military helicopters are doing training exercises in the same airspace as commercial airlines – at night and with peak congestion. I hope these exercises in Reagan airspace will be suspended indefinitely until the investigation is complete,” Hawley posted on X.
The airspace around the airport is one of the most tightly controlled in the nation, compounded by helicopter traffic.
The Center Square has previously reported on the decades-old perimeter rule limiting the number of nonstop flights to 1,250 miles from the airport; however, the government has granted several exceptions over the years – including the daily nonstop flights from Wichita. According to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, 40 flights meet the exception.
According to the most recent report from the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority, Reagan National and Dulles International each served more than 26 million passengers in the previous 12 months ending in November. Combined, it’s 53.1 million.
Dulles has 113 gates, Reagan 58.
“The long-standing slot and perimeter regulatory structure is essential for maintaining the operational and economic balance between the small, space-constrained and overcrowded Reagan National. The slot rule manages congestion by controlling the frequency of takeoffs and landings,” according to the authority.
The authority and Virginia’s U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner have opposed expanding the perimeter rule, citing congestion, delays and safety concerns.
“Because of the short length of its runways, over 90 percent of DCA’s flights use its main runway, making it the busiest runway in America with over 800 daily takeoffs and landings, which is a takeoff or landing every minute during most of the day. Making the nation’s busiest runway even busier is a bad idea,” according to the authority.
In addition, DCA maintains a very narrow and restricted take-off and landing corridor. The authority argues that pilots rate DCA as one of the most challenging airports in the nation.
